The jury represents the people of the United States as a whole, not the defendent. Therefore the jury needs to be made up of people who are willing to implement the will of the people of the US. The will of the people of the US is that the death penalty is an option upon conviction for this kind of crime. Those who will not consider the death penalty will not implement that part of the will of the people, and therefore cannot represent the will of the people.
It is just the same as excluding someone who says “I will vote to convict no matter what”. The will of the people includes both the willingness to consider reasonable doubt, and the death penalty.
From an NPR report on this topic, there apparently has been research and those who would be willing to impose the death penalty are both more likely to find someone guilty and more likely to impose a harsher penalty than someone not willing to impose the death penalty given the same evidence.
Thus, the very fact that it is a capital crime makes it more likely that you will get a conviction and harsher sentence.
Apparently there has been a lot of research on this. One of the best I can find is the Capital Jury Project. It seems pretty fact-based without a political agenda.
The results from the studies based on CJP data seem to indicate minorities, women, and Catholics are significantly under-represented on capital juries, and that these juries have an increased likelihood of conviction, harsher sentences, and reduced jury deliberation time.
Two points strike me - they say that excluding anti-DP people from juries causes minorities to be excluded. Is that because minorities are more likely to be anti-DP? And what minorities are they talking about - blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims?
The other point is that this was an examination of juries in capital cases - that is, cases where the death penalty is an option. Yet they claim that such juries impose harsher sentences. Does the jury in most states decide on the length of sentence? I didn’t think they did (I am open to correction on this point.)
If the authors of the study just mean that pro-DP juries are more likely to impose the DP, then that makes sense to me - death is a harsher sentence than prison time. Or does it mean that pro-DP juries tend to convict of murder instead of some lesser included offense, like voluntary manslaughter (or second-degree murder instead of first)?
It depends on your definition of “fair”, I guess. If you define “fair” as ‘it takes longer, is more likely to result in acquital’ and imposes shorter sentences’, then it’s fairer.
I would expect people who support the DP to disagree with such a definiton. They would (I bet) say “fair” means “he got what he deserved”.
I’m not a criminal lawyer (heh, heh) but I think that the judge has to ask them if they are willing to put aside their opposition to the death penalty and if they are not, then they are dismissed.
In California capital cases have two rounds of decision. The first is guilty or not guilty without regard to punishment. The second is death penalty or no death penalty for capital cases.
I’m not sure about terms - I think judges do it. For the criminal case I was on (about as far from a capital case as you can get) we just gave the verdict, and were excused before the term was decided. There are sentencing guidelines in many states, so I suspect juries are not involved.
In the jury selection/voir dire process, BOTH attorneys get to throw out some set number of potential jurors for whatever reason (peremptory challenge), as well as to get others stricken because they’re not objective (strike for cause). An attorney could decide to throw out anyone under 30 on the panel as a peremptory challenge, and then have everyone who agrees with the question “Muslims are evil.” in a strike for cause, as they’re not objective.
So if the prosecution is throwing out anti death-penalty jurors, the defense is throwing some other group out that is perceived to be equally injurious to their case, and both sides get to come up with their own strike for cause groups, and the judge grants or denies the request. In practice, they almost always grant them, except when the challenges are clearly irrelevant and the opposing counsel objects. This is used in cases where one side tries to say… strike all blacks from a jury or some other racial motivation.
It’s not one-sided; the defense is assuredly throwing groups out wholesale as well.
I don’t know how they are doing it in Boston, but being against the death penalty in principle does not mean you are against applying it in a specific instance. I am against it because I think it has been misapplied in the US and the benefits, if any, of it are far outweighed by the problems. But assuming the facts in the case warrant it, I’d have no trouble voting for capital punishment for this guy.
There are certainly some people who are opposed no matter what. Excluding them makes sense. Excluding people like me not so much.
By the way “a jury of your peers” is an archaism. It used to mean that if you were a commoner you were entitled to a jury of commoners, if you were an aristocrat you were entitled to a jury of aristocrats. Since in the United States we don’t have an aristocracy everyone is your peer. It certainly doesn’t mean that if you’re against the death penalty you’re entitled to a jury of people who are against the death penalty, or if you are scientist you’re entitled to a jury of scientists, or if you’re white you’re entitled to an all-white jury.
They shouldn’t be allowed to ask potential jurors. Whether or not one believes in the death penalty has no bearing on the guilt or innocence of the accused. If some of the jurors are against it, so what? As long as life without parole is the alternative.
ETA: Sentencing shouldn’t be left up to jurors at all. Let someone who works for the government carry out its barbarity.
The interviews, typically lasting 3 to 4 hours, chronicle the jurors’ experiences and decision-making over the course of the trial, identify points at which various influences come into play, and reveal the ways in which jurors reach their final sentencing decisions.
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In Australia, both parties would be liable to jail time for this, but thankfully not “DPed” though.